Smart meter campaign stuck in Himachal. The Electricity Board has canceled the tender worth Rs 3,700 crore for this campaign.
Technical flaws are believed to be responsible for the cancellation of the tender. The board has said to restart the tender process. The state has to get this budget under the Centre’s RDSS scheme.
In this, about 1900 crore rupees are to be spent on installation of smart meters. In this process, the electricity board had set a target of replacing meters of 24 lakh consumers.
While about 1800 crore rupees were to be spent on necessary improvements and maintenance in the electricity board, but now the project has got stuck due to the cancellation of the tender process at the last moment.
The cancellation of the tender process has been termed as a victory by the Electricity Board Employees Union.
The Electricity Board Employees Union recently met Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu. In this, questions were raised on the smart meter scheme.
In fact, 125 units of electricity are being given free of cost across the state. The consumers who are getting this electricity free of cost, do not even have to pay meter rent.
The state government, in its guarantee, has said to take this facility up to 300 units. In such a situation, the Electricity Board Employees Union had argued that the board would have to face huge losses by installing smart meters in lieu of free electricity.
Electricity Board will not get any benefit of this project. Right after this meeting, it has now been decided to cancel the tender.
Electricity Board’s Managing Director Pankaj Dadhwal said that due to technical reasons, this tender has been cancelled. The tender process will start afresh.
These tenders will be held again in the future and the board will complete the works which were decided from this budget in the state in the coming days.
There was no use
Heera Lal Verma, general secretary of the Electricity Board Employees Union, said that this step has been taken to stop wasteful expenditure in the Electricity Board.
If the government will provide free electricity after spending a lot on smart meters, then there will be no benefit to anyone by installing such meters.